The subject matter described and/or illustrated herein relates generally to connectors, and more particularly, to connectors having keying members for orienting the connector relative to a mating connector.
Connectors that terminate the end of a cable, or cable connectors, typically mate with the mating connector of another device, for example another cable. The cable connector includes a housing that holds one or more contacts. Each contact is connected to a corresponding conductor that extends along the length of the cable. When the housing of the cable connector is mated with a housing of the mating connector, each of the contacts engages a corresponding mating contact of the mating connector to establish a connection between the cable and the other device. The housings of the cable and mating connectors sometimes include keying elements, which may also be referred to as keying members. The keying members/elements cooperate such that the cable connector can only be mated with the mating connector of the device to which the cable is to be connected. Accordingly, the keying members/elements may prevent the cable from being connected to the wrong device.
The keying members/elements cooperate such that the cable and mating connectors can only be mated together in a predetermined relative orientation. In other words, the keying members/elements prevent the cable and mating connectors from being mated together when the housings are not in the predetermined orientation relative to each other. To mate the cable and mating connectors together, the housings must be aligned into the predetermined relative position. For example, the keying members/elements may be aligned by rotating the housing of the cable connector relative to the mating connector. However, rotating the housing of the cable connector may damage the cable connector. For example, rotating the housing of the cable connector may damage the housing and/or may disengage the contact(s) of the cable connector from the conductor(s) of the cable and thereby interrupt connection therebetween. Moreover, and for example, rotating the housing of the cable connector may twist the cable. Twisting the cable may make it more difficult to rotate and/or hold the housing of the cable connector in the predetermined relative orientation, which may make it more difficult to mate the cable connector to the mating connector. Further, twisting the cable may damage and/or sever the conductor of the cable.